Brian Benczkowski

Brian Allen Benczkowski (born October 5, 1969) is an American lawyer who served as the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the United States Department of Justice. Prior to assuming that role, he was a partner at Kirkland & Ellis.

Education Benczkowski received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Virginia in 1991. He attended the Washington University School of Law, where he was an associate editor of the Washington University Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law. He received his Juris Doctor in 1994.

Legal career Early in his career, Benczkowski served on the staff of former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici and U.S. Representative Jim Sensenbrenner.

In 2010, Benczkowski joined the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis, where his practice focused on litigation and white collar criminal defense, including government and internal investigations. as well as BP America, Volkswagen, Charter Communications, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and other corporate entities.

Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Benczkowski was a member of President Donald Trump's 2016 transition team, helping to manage the Justice Department transition.

In June 2017, President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Benczkowski to become Assistant Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division. According to The Washington Post, "Benczkowski is a well-regarded lawyer, especially in conservative circles." At the time of his confirmation in July 2018, Benczkowski had no prosecutorial experience.

At his confirmation hearing, Benczkowski refused to recuse himself from dealing with the Mueller investigation, even though he supervised an internal investigation of a bank owned by two Russian oligarchs. He did agree to recuse himself from all matters related to the bank. While in private practice, Benczkowski oversaw an investigation by the cybersecurity firm Stroz Friedberg related to allegations that there was a "secret communications channel" between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank.

While heading the Criminal Division, Benczkowski became known for his efforts to use data analytics to combat the opioid epidemic and fraud against government programs enacted to help small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as his handling of a whistleblower complaint about President Trump's dealings with Ukraine. He was responsible for enforcement of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, an antibribery law, and helped negotiate several FCPA settlements against multinational corporations, including the resolution with Ericsson AB that resulted in the telecommunications-equipment maker paying more than $1 billion in fines.

During his tenure, Benczkowski also announced several policy shifts related to how the Department of Justice prosecutes corporations. One policy, which became known as the Benczkowski Memo, set forth the Criminal Division's practices for selecting monitors—third parties who serve in watchdog roles overseeing a company's compliance with the terms of federal criminal settlements. Benczkowski took the view that these policy changes promote greater transparency in how prosecutors apply standards and criteria to cases, which will make investigations more efficient and outcomes fairer and more consistent.

While heading the Criminal Division, Benczkowski and senior career lawyers from the division's Fraud Section met with Rudy Giuliani to discuss a bribery case in which he and other attorneys were representing a Venezuelan energy executive. This meeting took place before the United States Attorney's office in Manhattan, in an unrelated case, publicly charged two Giuliani associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, with breaking campaign finance laws and trying to unlawfully influence politicians. In an unusual statement, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr told The New York Times, "When Mr. Benczkowski and fraud section lawyers met with Mr. Giuliani, they were not aware of any investigation of Mr. Giuliani's associates in the Southern District of New York and would not have met with him had they known."

On June 10, 2020, Benczkowski announced he would resign on July 3. On September 1, 2020, Kirkland and Ellis announced that Benczkowski had returned to the firm as a partner in its Washington, D.C. office.